My Fabled Lands review - the setting

The doorway to a new world.
I wish I'd found it sooner.

When I was about 11, I made a map of a country, fitted it with random encounters and events based on the terrain and played a random adventure based on die rolls using the Advanced Fighting Fantasy system. 

I realise now that I was crying out for Fabled Lands.

Fabled Lands was written by Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson and it is now being re-released as physical books and as apps.  There are also two Fabled Lands RPG sourcebooks, a blog and a yahoo group.  

She also seems happy at the sight
of the Fabled Lands title. 

I am gutted to read on Wikipedia that the series was written in 1995-1996. That means that  it has been around for 16 years without me reading it.  Back then, six books were released with the intention of releasing another six.  However, books seven to twelve were never published (don't forget its entry on TVtropes).

Recently, the first four books have been republished physically.  At the time of writing, the game has been released on the iPad and will soon be released on the iPhone with some great artwork including pieces by Russ Nicholson.  Two RPG sourcebooks have also been released.

I bought the first four physical books as soon as I found out.  I started reading them and quickly became immersed in the world I entered.  In my next post, I will write about my first explorations of the Fabled Lands, but here I will give a brief overview of the setting and the game system. 

Setting

Where shall I begin?

The Fabled Lands are a place of infinite variety and opportunity.  You could travel across sea or land, climb mountains, explore forests, traipse through bogs or trudge across plains.  On your travels, you may experience some good or bad events, but you it will be a different event each time. 

The big things happen in the settlements.  Each village, town and city has its own character from the stinky, sulphur choked Yellowport to the ashes and rubble of Trefoille to the fortified Citidel of Velis Corin.  The writing and the illustrations really bring out the atmosphere of each place.

What could happen in this city?
Literally anything.

Each location has its own colourful band of people, some who can help you, some who may need your help and some who can just provide some interesting experiences.  Yellowport alone contains a provost Marshal who  has helped overthrow the king, a sneaky thief, a cult of cannibals, a sage in need and many others.  Talking with these people can open up a wide variety of opportunities which may lead you to go on quests. 

For example, a sage in a tavern in Yellowport will pay handsomely if you go to Scorpion Bight (which does contain scorpion people) and return a book to him.  Fabled Lands is full of these opportunities which involve varying levels of complexity and difficulty and the more you explore them, the more these opportunities will become apparent to you. 

Take your pick.  I wouldn't recommend
taking the dragon, though.  

The rewards are many and varied.  They range from money (coins known as shards) to trade goods, weapons, armour and equipment to the use of a friend's services (very useful if they are wizards) to having a stat increased to going up a level and therefore increasing your stamina and making certain tasks easier for you.  If you are super lucky, you may find a way of teleporting all over the world.

As well as material rewards, you can also obtain titles, become an initiate to a religion, obtain blessings and make resurrection deals.  The titles can make other characters react more favourably towards you.  Being an initiate to a religion enables you to get favours from that religion, the main two being cheaper blessings and resurrection deals.  Blessings allow you to reroll an ability roll if you fail or they may protect you from storms and disease.  Reurrection deals allow you to wake up in a temple if you are killed.  I like they way that they are described as 'The last word on insurance'. 

Can't we just do a bit of sightseeing,
Mr Frodo?

Unlike most gamebooks, you are not told of any aim at the beginning.  There are no quests to save the world and there is no way to 'win'.  It is not for people who want a set narrative and a quest to save the world, as this is not what Fabled Lands is about.  On the flipside, it is kind of comforting that your character does not have the world on their shoulders and instead they can explore some inconsequential part of a mountain without the sands of time running down.

Instead of the book telling you that you have succeeded or failed, you decide the criteria for success.  This is one of the ways that the books provide a good role playing opportunity.  Speaking of which, there are now two Fabled Lands RPG rulebooks which Dave Morris said in this interview  was what he would like to see.



Your choice of initial characters. 

 Your choices to reach your success are also many and varied - will you be a sneaky character or someone who fights creatures?  Will you earn money by being a merchant and sailing from city to city with trade goods braving pirates, storms and strange beasts?  Will you achieve greatness by magic or by being pious?

You could also explore the wilderness where you will find all kinds of strange beasts and goings on.  The more remote the area, the stranger the the encounter.  They can range from bandits to scorpion men to dragons and faerie folk where all kinds of wierd things can happen. 

Merfolk are just some of the
unpredictable nonhumans
you could come across.

The world certainly has a fantasy feel, but it is not over the top.  Magic is quite prevalent as any character has a magic score and can attempt to cast a spell.  However, low magic characters can't do very much.  There are also plenty of wizards and magical items in the world.  Some magical items can be bought and sold for money such as potions that increase an ability score by one for one roll.  Most items that increase your abilities are also described as magical.  However, the game never degenerates into getting the shiniest toys.   

Humans occupy most of the world with non human races living in the remote wilderness.  There are no towns of orcs, elves and dwarves randomly dotted around the land and few non humans live in the human settlements.  The geography also makes sense to me.

Live in a castle, buy a ship, go around
 the world - it's all possible.  

A lot of thought has gone into making this world into a believable fantasy world by allowing you to potentially become a part of its aspects - merchants sail to and from cities and trade goods, people travel between towns, disasters strike, such as having your house burn down.  Most of the people have believable desires and lives rather than just being 2D fantasy stock characters and although there is magicand non human races, they have been added in a way as to not derail the world and just make it a big pot of fantasy cliches. 

Each land has a
distinct character.

The Fabled Lands have been meticulously constructed.  Some of the descriptions are not too detailed, which the fans of epic narrative might not like, but part of the fun could be coming up with your own narrative.  The book provides the events and you can fill in the details in the form on how your character feels or what they say or how other people respond to you. 

So basically, the setting is a whole fantasy world chock full of all kinds of people and monsters.  And you can do anything you like in that world and aspire to go from a lowly outcast to become anyone you want to be.  Which should cover what most people are after.





How should I approach reading Fabled Lands?

The best thing about Fabled Lands is its huge world full of opportunity to get into all kinds of shennanigans.  It lacks in some areas, but no series of gamebooks can match it for its huge sandbox style set up.

The best way to approach Fabled Lands is with the mindset that you can create your own story for yourself using the books as a guide.

Where will you end up?

As I stated, there are some things that are not everybodies cup of tea.  There are no epic, over the top descriptions, espicially on areas which do not describe 'quests' such as the roads between large settlements.  . 

There is also no storyline in which you have to save the world or in depth description of your character's feelings. 

However, as I stated above, the best way to approach the game is to make up your own epic story as you play it.  There are all kinds of quests that you can complete with six different characters with six different outlooks on life.  How would a wizard feel about slaying the provost marshall of Yellowport?  Would a troubador want to climb Devil's Peak?  Would a wayfarer want to stay in Marlock City?  Write down your thoughts and feelings in your narrative.   



DARTH VADER:  Where's the Fabled Lands series?  Is it safe? 

Is it alright?

DARTH SIDIOUS:  I'm afraid it died...It seems, in your anger,

you axed it. 

Another thing is that you need to make sure that you have lots of time.  Once you start to complete some quests, increase your ability scores and go up in rank, more of the world will open up to you like a big black hole as you will soon get sucked in, desperate to discover and explore more.

You will then be begging for the other books.  BEGGING!

And then you will find out that books 5 and 6 are out of print, books 7-12 are out of print haven't been printed yet and you will scream in anguish and frustration.

However, if sales of the relaunch are good then they might be released, so we have a new hope.


What has Fabled Lands taught me about setting in gamebooks?

Creature of Havoc is
great gamebook
despite its narrow
path to victory.

Some gamebooks have 'one true path'  where the aim of the book is to find out how you can achieve victory. You then work out what story your character experiences.  You probably move from one scene to the next or one location to the next with no chance of going back and if you miss something, then tough, you lose.  

Fabled Lands is the opposite to that set up.  You can go where you want when you want.  If you do not complete a quest the first time around, you will just take a penalty and be able to attempt it the second time around.

Scorpion Swamp is quite
open ended, but it
didn't have the same
atmosphere as Fabled Lands.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides of the sliding scale and there are some great gamebooks that have one true path and some not so great open ended ones.

The main reason that Fabled Lands is so easy to get immersed in is its logical consistency.  Cities have the same kind of options - markets, temples, taverns, exploration etc.  However, their features are also influenced by the location of the city and its inhabitants.  Cities on coasts have harbours.  In one city, full of rogues, you do not get well thought of if you hand over a pirate captain's head for a reward.  A small village on a wooded island has a temple to the nature goddess, Lacuna.



Although he likes to play with his
pets, Death appears in most books.
It's a busy schedule.  You could say
that he's worked to the bone.

 Sea voyages have the risk of pirates or storms.  They also have the risk of supernatural encounters such as a ship belonging to DEATH.  Sailors refuse to land in Scorpion Bight (where Scorpion men live) because the authors have thought about how the sailors would feel about Scorpion Bight and so the sailors are not just automatons that do what you want.  They do what you'd do if you were a sailor.

Does Tregard actually do anything
 in his spare time?  Everyone needs 
a hobby to stop them losing their heads.

People aren't just there to stand in a place and give you an item or some advice.  People across the Fabled Lands know of each other and may help of hinder you depending on what they know of you.  For example, if you have the title King's Champion then soldiers loyal to the King will revere you and help you.

People you come across may pop up in other situations too.  You will make allies and enemies who will help or hinder you all over the Fabled Lands.

The maps show us that the layout of the Fabled Lands is also very logical.  Cities are on rivers which flow into the sea, mountains are in ranges and the weather makes sense with the latitude.

A different experience, every time.

All aspects of life appear in Fabled Lands.  You don't have to save the King or support the usurper.  You could just buy a boat and become a trader.  Or you could make a pilgrimage to a temple of your god.  Or you could try your hand at mining silver.  Or make some investments in a merchant's guild.  Or go to a sulphur filled lake and steal treasure from the Sea Dragon.  It's all there from the fantastic to the mundane.  However, within this setting Morris and Thomson have provided tons of variety.  There are temples but there are lots of gods to choose from.  There are settlements but each one has its own special features.  You travel on a lot of roads, but each road will have a different set of events on it.

I never had a moment where my reading was interrupted by a thought that something doesn't make sense.  The book has a set of rules which it follows well. The Fabled Lands is a very well thought out living breathing world.  And that is a huge achievement considering how big this world is.

So get out there and explore it.

You can buy Fabled Lands from Amazon and searching for Fabled Lands or by going to the Fable Lands blog where you can buy the books and see the other books that Jamie Thomson and Dave Morris are selling.  You can also download Fabled Lands from iTunes.

Here's a blogging tip


I started this post in February.  When I posted it, the post appeared below my March posts on the date it was drafted, not the date it was published.  I needed to change the date in the post options box below the post on the edit post box.

The instructions are here (and they also contain a lot of  instances of the word post)

http://www.blogdoctor.me/2006/10/how-to-change-post-order.html



What's going down?

Ok, I admit, I said I would update weekly, but there has been a lot of fab new stuff this week, so I will blog the news today and then write about Fabled Lands on Sunday.

Competitions

Wayne Densley at the Chronicles of Arborell has released the guidelines for the 2011 Windhammer Prize.  

I love the Windhammer Prize for several reasons.  First of all, it helped reignite my love of gamebooks.  I entered the first one in 2008 because I had some spare time. However, after receiving feedback from readers, I realised that people are interested in gamebooks.  

I now believe that my first attempts at writing gamebooks were not good.  Determined to make my system fair, I forgot about description, cool items, characterisation and storyline.  Thanks to Windhammer, I got feedback on what I need to improve on as well as a good idea about what people like by reading the winning entries.  

I took their feedback on board and became determined to make sure my gamebooks were better, which led to Sharkbait's Revenge.  

All the previous entries are here   including my first two attempts at the competition.  

You have until September 7th to submit a 100 paragraph gamebook which is no longer than 40 pages.  I would love for as many people to enter as I always like reading these new gamebooks as they are always of high quality and innovative.  

The One page dungeon competition

I heard about this competition thanks to the Grognardia blog.  It looks really interesting and I'd like to give it a shot.  The guidelines for the competition, along with the previous entries, are here.

Gamebook releases

Catacombs of the Undercity is now available from iTunes (since when was it OK for names to not start with a capital letter?).  The book is written by Andrew Wright (whose names do start with capital letters), writer of the Fantasy Gamebook Blog.  Give the blog a good read and buy the app.

I have received my copy of Destiny Quest and look forward to getting stuck into it this weekend.  

Blogosphere stuff

Jonathan Green answers all the questions from his fans in a new vlog.

After having a twitter account for ages, I've decided to do some tweeting.  My Twitter page is

 http://twitter.com/#!/sl1605.

I'll see you on Sunday!  :).

I've done it again!

Sorry everyone, I pressed publish again, when I meant to press save.  At least you know that I have stuff ready to release and that I'm not making it up. 

I'll post about the Fabled Lands setting next Sunday and hopefully, by then, I'll stop pressing the publish button.  Have a good week.

He's not happy because he can't read it now.

What microadventures taught me - narrative is important

So now I'm more efficient with my paragraphs, but I still had a big problem with my early gamebooks. 



There was no narrative.

 Looking at my first adventure, War of Deities part 1, you will notice that most of the paragraphs are just descriptions of the room that you are in and the people in them.  This 400 paragraph book has 26000 words.

Moving over to my latest gamebook to date, Sharkbait's Revenge, we see that it is a 100 paragraph book with just under 22000 words.  And it has a shorter rules section.

When I started writing gamebooks, I just didn't write narrative.

And this orc is a 3rd level fighter
with a +1/+1 double sword and a
+2 amulet of natural armour. 

The way I originally approached writing gamebooks was the same as my approach the games - it was all about the numbers.  I didn't care what my sword looked like if it gave me a +2 bonus in combat.  I went for the 100 gold pieces and not the lovely description of the pile of treasure.  I was enjoying my experience immensely, but I just was not accessing the whole experience available to me.

 This was good at the time, but then when it came for me to write a gamebook, I completely missed those things out. 

I was too busy focusing on making the game system balanced.  I did not want impossible combats or instant deaths based on a die roll.  I think I did quite well (I hope), but my descriptions were scant and my characters were one dimensional.

This is the kind of feedback I got after my second entry to the Windhammer Prize for short gamebook fiction at Arborell when I entered City of the Dead.  The winner and the merit award prizes were more rules light and focused more on narrative.  Indeed, Kieran Coghlan's Waiting For the Light had nothing but an inventory list.  There wasn't even a background, but it is still great because of the narrative and the mystery of the book. 

I've just read Heart of Ice and there are some brilliant descriptions and characters in the book and this is why it is a contender for greatest gamebook of all time (don't we need a Fighting Fantazine type survey on this kind of thing already?)

A picture I took of the
Himalayan foothills.  I
would  think about how
to describe this lovely place.

So when I wrote microadventures, I fleshed them out with good descriptions of the area the hero was in.  I imagined the smells and the sights and how the hero might feel in that situation. 

An ancient Egytian scimitar.  Not just
another non descript method of dealing
2 stamina points of damage.

I went to museums and took pictures of artefacts that I could describe in my books.  I also made sure that all of my characters, even the bit part ones, had a defining characteristic.  I also thought of certain well known phrases or scenes which would give tons of information on the mood of the scene. 

For example, In my short book In the name of Love, I had a big 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!' when the soldier's lover was shot with a crossbow (number of Os may vary with each big 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!')

I would also read about actual historical events to get a feel for what it was actually like to be in a setting that matched the time I was in.  A couple of examples include a forensic account of a battle bought to my attention on the Fabled Lands blog and a link to an article about how human skulls were used as drinking vessels at an H.P. Lovecraft blog.

I have found www.tvtropes.org to be an invaluable tool for things like this.  However, be warned - I also found it highly addictive.

I wanted everything to be memorable.  And it had to be if all our readers were looking at would be the rules, the background and about 10 paragraphs.

This is what I now do - Sometims I feel like I am going over the top by drawing on well known tropes and cliches.  I also feel like I am being less original, but then readers need something to connect to. 

I don't want to go that far, but I need to have a balance of having enough familiar material to pull the readers in with enough original material to make my book a unique and entertaining experience.

Can you have too much description?  What do you think, Tolkien?

However, it seems that there can be too much description for some people.  I realised this from the comments on this post in Fantasy Gamebook that minimal description allows people to create their own narrative about their character. 

So then it goes down to how much is too much?  What should be in the book and what should be left for the reader to fill in?  Is there just one answer to this question? 

Next time, I'll be writing about the Fabled Lands setting in a lead up to my review of The War Torn Kingdom. 

Whoops - my finger slipped 

He's not a villain.  He's
more 'armless than most.

Get back in the book, Zagor.
It's not time yet.

You may have seen an article entitled 'Zagor - misunderstood hero?' in your feeds that has no link.  This is a future article that I intend to publish after I have written about Fabled Lands.  I was adding an image to the post and accidently hit publish rather than save.  I apologise for that.At the moment, my review of Fabled Lands is over four posts, so this article will be released in April.  That's something to look forward to. 

Speaking of accidental publishing, Murray will be publishing a playthrough of City of Thieves on his highly amusing Turn to 400 blog.  Keep an eye out for that.  

Lots to look forward to.  Have fun! 

What microadventures taught me - don't be a waste of space - addendum

I've just thought of a few other ways of creating an intresting and immersive gamebook which challenges the player even if it is over a small number of paragraphs.  This is by turning random choices into decisions.

Most gamebooks have some ultimate aim in order for you to win (Fabled Lands is an exception.  You decide what your criteria for success are and there is no 'winning' end).

However, most of the time, you have no idea on how to achieve that aim and you do not receive any direction from the book.  It becomes a matter of random choices or trial and error.  And if your success or failure depends on random trial and error then losing is going to feel very grating.   

For example, in Temple of Terror, you are given the opportunity at the beginning of paying for passage on a barge to Port Blacksand or travelling by foot.  If you go by foot, you've lost.  Really.  There's an item that you need in Port Blacksand that you need in order to trade it later on for a vital item.  How were you supposed to know that?  You weren't.  You just read through the whole book, not knowing that your were going to die towards the end because of something you did right at the beginning.  You didn't enjoy spending all that time losing?  Suck it up, princess.

Now drop and give me 399
'cos you aint good enough
to get to 400.

I was being a bit harsh there, and so was the book.  So how can you turn seemingly random choices like that into informed decisions that stretch your abilities so that at least if you do win or lose, the responsibility is yours alone.  Victory will be sweeter because it was you who did it.

So how can we turn these seemingly random choices into informed decisions?

Maps

It comes in handy but
having a maze with a
map of it at the entrance
kind of defeats the point of it.

All those arbitrary decisions of 'East or west?' can be made less arbitrary if you have a map at the beginning of the book.  That way, you have some idea about where you need to go.  Want to go to a village?  Go south.  Want to go to a castle?  Go west.  It is also useful in Spectral Stalkers. 

Too many dungeon crawls have similar corridors and identical doors which give no indication of whether you will be successful by taking them.  In its most frustrating form, taking random doors can lead to sudden death paragraphs.  Not very enjoyable.

Of course you don't know exactly what will happen at the locations on the map, but having a map makes the decisions less random and of course, going to random places is fine if the success of the hero does not depend on it.

Have puzzles

This is the game from Curse of the Mummy. 
What's the winning move?

Having a puzzle on a paragraph means that you have to make a series of decisions on what the solution is.  This gets a lot of milage out of one paragraph. 

However, I have come across puzzles where I have had to work out the number of a paragraph, hit a brick wall and got very frustrated about it (I'm looking at you, Tower of Destruction)! 

To make it easier, it could be a multiple choice puzzle or, if it does involve finding out which paragraph to turn to, make the solution paragraph obvious so that I can flick through the book and work out where it is. 

The devil is in the detail

Either he's an imposter or he's still
bitter about that time you put dog
poo in his lunch.

Some choices that may seem random are not actually random if you look at the details in the text or in the illustrations.  For example in Siege of Sardath, you come across Sorrel, one of your best friends.  He taught you archery, tracking and how to respect the forest and you taught him swordplay (bit of a bum deal for him if you ask me) and the text tells you that he has a scar on his right eye as a testament to this (I've never scarred my right eye as a testament to my friendship with someone.  Obviously, I'm not a good friend). 

The illustration opposite goes with the paragraph.  Notice anything out of place?

Another example is in Andrew Wrights microadventure, Debacle at Dead Mans' Inn.  At the end of the book, you have to decide which of the villagers is a shape shifter.  You are given a brief description of each villager.  All I'm going to say is that you need to read the descriptions of the villagers before you see them then.

So there are some more ways on getting more milage out of gamebook paragraphs.  A lot of the above ideas will be needed to make micro adventures more substantial but they will also work for longer adventures too and this means that there will be more space for plot and more encounters.

If you have any other ways of making a short adventure more substantial, please post it in the comments box. 

Blog updates

I am really getting sucked into this blogging thing.  I have several posts written and ready to post, but I need to slow down.  I'm finding it very easy to just spend all of my time surfing the blogosphere and writing posts about gamebooks.  I'm loving it and I'm getting a lot out of it, but there is one small problem.

I'm not writing any gamebooks.

I need to make time to actually write some gamebooks, so I'm going to limit this blog to one post a week.  I aim to post on a Sunday morning (GMT) from now on.  My next post will be about narrative in microadventures and then I will be writing about Fabled Lands.  And then I will also write some more gamebooks.  The posts will be less frequent but they will be more regular. 

Thankyou all for all of your attention so far!  Please keep in touch and tell your friends about this blog! 

Have a lovely day.

 

What microadventures taught me - don't be a waste of space

Mark Rosewater (also known as MaRo).

First of all, I recommend you read this article and this article by Mark Rosewater, head designer of Magic the Gathering.  It is a useful guide on how to improve your creativity and is a great read, even if you know nothing about Magic the Gathering.  As I have said before, I will post a list of articles that Mark Rosewater has written on creativity and game design as many of his ideas are pertinent for gamebooks. 

Read those articles?  They're good, aren't they?  So why were they pertinent to gamebooks and microadventures?

It all goes back to Mark's view on restrictions.  Restrictions breed creativity.  And microadventures confirmed this.

I had just completed Shadowcaster part 1, a 533 paragraph abomination chock full of every idea I could fit in to the book and I couldn't carry on with the other two books.  I had made it too big and I could no longer be bothered to carry on with the Shadowcaster trilogy.

So I was sitting around, not too motivated to do anything gamebook related, when I downloaded the Fighting Fantasy official magazine (is it still going btw?).  In the magazine was a 25 paragraph adventure by Andrew Wright called 'In the Shade of the Pango Tree.'.  The paragraphs filled one page of A4 which they shared with a large illustration in the middle of the page.  I had a brainwave - writing one of these little pieces would be quick, simple and allow me to flex my creative muscles.  Andrew wrote two more of these adventures - Debacle at Dead Man's Inn and Into the Valley of Halos.  They can be found in this Yahoo Group. 

So I ended up writing ten microadventures.  However, the restriction of having only 25 or 50 paragraphs to use, made me call upon my creativity in order to squeeze more in to the adventure. 

The problem with having so few paragraphs is that the player will only have a few decisions before the adventure is over or they will havea very linear adventure.  It is a problem that the small Choose Your Own Adventure books had, as mentioned in this article.  The book would also not be very variable and its replayability factor would be very small.

However, there are several solutions to the problems which mean that you can pack a good storyline into a small 25 paragraph adventure.

Here they are:

1)  If there is an ability roll and the outcomes of success and/or failure are obvious then you do not need to turn to a new paragraph to read the outcome.

In most Fighting Fantasy books, when you test your luck, you usually have to turn to a new paragraph if you are lucky or another new paragraph if you are unlucky.  That's two new paragraphs for every test for luck, which is 8% of a 25 paragraph book.

However, if, for example, you have to test your luck to see if an arrow that someone firs hits you, then it will come as no surprise that if you are lucky, the arrow misses and if you are unlucky then the arrow hits you and you lose stamina.  This does not warrant two new paragraphs.  Just leave it one the current paragraph.

Also, if you have an ability roll and the result of one of the rolls is that nothing happens, then you only need to turn to a new paragraph for the result that involves something happening. 

For example, if you have to test your luck to see if you notice a secret door, then you can write 'Test your luck.  If you are lucky, turn to 11.  If you are unlucky, you carry on down to corridor until...'

This also applies to random die rolls to see if an event happens.  Fabled Lands is full of these and if you had to turn to a new paragraph for every random event that happens to you, then the books would have an extra 30 or so paragraphs.  These random events die rolls will also add variability to the book.  An example from The War Torn Kingdom:

 

Roll 1 or 2 A thief steals one item from you (your choice).

Roll 3 or 4 Nothing happens.

Roll 5 or 6 Find a manbeast's helmet.



The paragraph then  gives you a decision to make.  That is efficiency with paragraphs. 

2)  If you offer a decision with several options, then one of the options could involve staying on the paragraph.

For example, instead of writing 'To go north turn to 4.  To go south, turn to 8.', you could write 'If you wish to go north, turn to 4.  If you wish to go south, you follow the path...'.

This reduces the number of paragraphs you need to use by 1, which is 4% of a 25 paragraph gamebook.

3)  Have items that can be used independently of where the player is in the book

'Sure, the storm drake looks tough, but not after I've shot him with my blunderbuss and cut him a few times with my good old anti dragon magic sword.  And if it tries something, it has to get past my breastplate and my wyrmskin cloak.'

Stormslayer, Jonathan Green.

Since you have only 25 paragraphs, you can't write it like a Livingstone adventure where any old piece of junk gets a paragraph dedicated to how it manages to help you save the world (for example - a small wooden brick gets you access to a shop or certain villains are scared of a monkey or some powerful sorceress requires you to have small metal discs or certain shapes.). 

However, you can still have plenty of items which do not require a new paragraph every time you use them.

i)  Items that you can use to restore stamina at any paragraph except for one where you have a combat, such as provisions or potions of healing.

ii) Items that you can use when you are in combat such as a throwing dagger that you can use before the combat begins or a piece of armour that reduces damage on a die roll.

iii) Items that has an effect when certain events happen to you such as a fur cloak that allows you to ignore any damage from cold or a climbing kit that allows you to make climbing rolls easier.

These items can also offer more choices.  For example, the throwing dagger you use in combat may get lost when you use it so you have to decide whether you use it for the combat you are in or whether you should save it for later. 

3)  Have an encumbrance limit.

'Oooh, that's good.  I can get some spider silk.  Hang on.  I've got a dagger,

a talisman, the lucky bottle and a carpet.  What should I get rid of?!'

The Screaming Spectre, Dave Morris.

If you have a limit to the number of items you can carry, then every time you find a new item, you have a decision.  Is this going to be useful enough for me to use a slot on this?  I'm already full - is this item going to be more important than anything else I'm carrying?  Do I know how useful any of my current items are? 

4)  Go shopping

'I could by the boots of stealth and make use of the move

silently skill, but then I won't be able to afford a sword!'

Master of Chaos, Keith Martin

There's nothing that gives someone lots of decisions to make like a list of useful items with a price tag. 

The combinations become very large very quickly, expecially if you factor in an encumbrance limit and if you make sure that the player will not have enough money to buy everything. 

Having a list of things to buy may also affect other decisions a player makes.  If you give them an option of trying to get more money by doing something risky, then they need to decide if they can afford to buy what they need or if they need to take the risk to get more money and therefore more items. 



They're all very nice, but I really need
something that can take out a
mad sorcerer.



Or maybe they should save their money because it may come in handy later.  Or maybe they could sell something. 

You can put all of these decisions on one paragraph just by having a shop in your adventure.

5)  Give the player decisions in combat rather than just make it a die rolling exercise

'Should I thunderbolt this guy or cast fast hands?'

Legend of Zagor, Ian Livingstone.

Most combat systems use the idea of rounds.  If your character has different modes of attack, such as a choice of spells or the decision to attack in an aggressive manner or defensive manner, then each round becomes a decision. 

6)  Allow the character to be customised

'I'll definately need climbing, but should I go for disguise or combat?'

Moonrunner, Stephen Hand

You can give the player decisions to make before the game begins.  They can customise their character in several ways.

i)  Give them a choice of characters (Fabled Lands, The Fellowhip of Four, Duelmaster books or Legend of Zagor)

ii)  Give the player points to adjust their character's abilities (Night Dragon)

iii)  Give the player skills and/or spells to choose from (Lone Wolf, Citidel of Chaos, Moonrunner)

iv)  Give the player a choice of equipment and/or a shop to buy equipment from (Lone Wolf, Space Assassin)

7)  Give the player a choice of paragraphs in the background.

So instead of giving players the background and telling them to turn to 1, give them a choice.  This gives you one extra paragraph to play with. 

So there we are.  In my free download, Ten Short Fighting Fantasy Books and One Long One, you will be able to see me utilise all of these ideas in my micro adventures.  I would recommend anyone to do some - they are fun and quick.  If you do write one, I'd love to read them. 

Next time, I'll write about what micro adventures taught me in terms of narrative.

Until then...have fun!


NUEV3ZS5YBZR

What microadventures taught me. Prologue - the circumstances that led me to write micro adventures

This is the story of how I wrote ten micro adventures and how they made my writing a lot better. 

Tiny little Fighting Fantasy.

For me, a microadventure has 100 of fewer paragraphs.  I have written gamebooks as small as 25 paragraphs long. 

You can find microadventures (and many other, longer Fighting Fantasy books) from the following links:

http://www.ffproject.com/download.htm

http://www.ffgamebooks-online.com/

http://www.fightingfantasy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1408&Itemid=67

http://web.archive.org/web/20080411094537/www.shadowvault.net/gamebooks.htm

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/fighting_fantasy_gamebooks/files/Amateur%20gamebooks/

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/titan_rebuilding/files/Amateur%20Adventures/

So it’s September 2007 and I’ve completed one Fighting Fantasy Gamebook of my own, War of Deities part 1.  It’s the first gamebook I’ve completed (I’ll write about my unsuccessful attempts in a future post) and I’m looking over it for errors after keeping it hidden away for two months.  I wrote and randomised the paragraphs in two days in the summer and then I hid it away. 

I had decided to go easy on myself – the book was a basic dungeon crawl with random and not too logical encounters culminating with a battle against a mad wizard.  The only twist was that you were trying to get some priceless artefact back and that someone else was also trying to get it. 

I included this because I wanted to make it a four part gamebook series, so naturally, inspired by re reading my opening gamebook and having written several notes on the other three, I started a completely different Fighting Fantasy book.

It’s not logical, I know.  One of my problems is that I have too many ideas and that I need to stay disciplined enough to focus on one of them or I won’t get anything done.  I’ve learnt that now (I will  write about why complete disasters are so good in a future post).

Enter Shadowcaster, part 1 (I intended this to be part of a trilogy).  It is nothing to do with the 1993 game of the same name. In this Fighting Fantasy gamebook, the hero is a wizard with a choice of magical skills and an extra ability score called morality.   

However, I wanted to be clever.  Morality was a measure of your philosophical outlook.  A low morality score meant that people weaker than you should sacrificed for your good.  A high morality meant that you should serve a higher cause to the extent that you would give up your life for it.  There was a narrow happy mean where you had not been influenced too strongly by these philosophies and had quite a balanced outlook on life.

Light, darkness or shadow?

I did not want to use the words ‘good’ or ‘evil’ as I did not want to put such slippery and connotation laden words into this book.  Instead I used the words light, darkness and shadow to describe the followers of such philosophies.  Those  with high moralities would follow the ‘light’ side and be your classic shining knights, pious priests and proud soldiers.  Except most of the time, they were fascists.

For you Magic the Gathering fans out there, I got this idea from Mark Rosewater's article, The Great White Way.  I will be mentioning more of Mark Rosewater's articles on design in future blog posts.

The side of darkness was your classic undead, orcs, monsters and necromancers.  They wanted pretty much what most ‘evil sorcerers’ wanted – world domination and the death of their enemies. 

The side of shadow consisted of a small band of sorcerers and other followers who wanted to utilise the powers of light and darkness without ascribing to their extreme philosophies.  However, it was a narrow path to walk.

Your actions would determine your morality.  I did not want your morality to determine your actions but it would determine how  other factions reacted to you and whether you could use certain artefacts.

Got that?  That’s not all...

Which magic will you use? Which path will you walk?

As a wizard, you could choose certain magical skills.  However, you didn’t just choose any old skills, you had to choose skills from the side of light, darkness and shadow.  You are a shadowcaster, a wizard that wants to use the magical abilities of the sides of light, darkness and shadow. 

Got that?  That’s not all...

Powers of light increased your morality.  Powers of darkness decreased your morality.  If your morality went too high, you couldn’t use your darkness or shadow powers.  If it went too low, you couldn’t use your light or shadow powers.  So it was important not to overuse those abilities.  You could use more powerful spells of light and darkness but they would increase or decrease your morality by more. 

Got that?

Don't go too far either way.

Add a bit of moralising about how being too extreme is the worst possible option.

Got that? Good.  Now we can get on with the story.

 

It’s a three part prequel to Beneath Nightmare Castle, so it includes characters from that book and also includes elements from Portal of Evil. 

Got that?

That’s about it, really.  I managed to finish the whole 533 behemoth and then I emailed it to ffproject to be put on the downloads page. 

However, my book was buggy and I had to fix some references.  I was a bit disappointed with the reception to it.

 Where did it all go wrong?

I was jumping around with my ideas and not focusing on one.    I agree with Sidney Smiles when he says ‘The shortest way to do many things is to do one thing at a time.’  I should have finished War of Deities before compiling some other epic.

Too many.

There were too many ideas in the book.  I went from a simple dungeon craw in the standard 400 paragraphs to a 533 paragraph cross country epic which included a morality score, skills, an over arching philosophy and references to canon Fighting Fantasy books.  I was juggling so many balls, I was bound to drop at least one.  The major one was my paragraphs and my atmosphere. 

The atmosphere of the book did not fit in with the atmosphere of Beneath Nightmare Castle. 

My book had nothing like this picture.  Neither did Beneath Nightmare Castle because this picture was banned.

I love Lovecraft.  I knew this before I knew who Lovecraft was or what it meant to be Lovecraftian.  That is why I like Beneath Nightmare Castle.  However, I was not familiar with its inspiration and so did not include any original Lovecraftian elements.  Instead, my characters are too generic – black robed wizards, zombies, elves and knights.  Next time, if I write a prequel, I will fit it in with the atmosphere of the original book.

I was being too ambitious and now I have two unfinished gamebook sagas instead of one.  Great.  I also put so much effort into Shadowcaster part 1 that I burnt myself out and did not want to write any more gamebooks.  Both of my projects have been shelved to this day. 

However, microadventures brought me out of my state of despondency...